Chapter 30
Thirty
Axel
“Are you okay?” I asked again, staring at Charlie.
Her eyes were wide, her body unmoving as her feet stayed planted in the pantry. I gently squeezed her arms, getting her attention as she blinked rapidly to keep the tears from flowing down her cheeks.
She nodded, sucking in a deep, shaky breath as she allowed me to hug her.
“Jo?” she asked, her voice muffled against my chest as her hands clung to the fabric of my shirt.
“She’s fine. Everyone is okay.”
Technically, not everyone, but the people I cared about were okay.
“Were they...” She paused as she pulled back to look at me, rubbing her lips together as tears filled her eyes. “They were here for me, weren’t they?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, bringing her hands up to cover her mouth as I gently helped her out of the pantry.
“Everything is okay,” I assured her as Ashley pulled a chair over and helped her sit down.
“Where’s Jo?” she asked, looking up at me with genuine concern in her eyes. “Are you sure she’s okay?
“She’s perfectly fine and taking care of stuff up front,” I replied, choosing my words wisely.
She was already shaken up, so I didn’t want to tell her about the bloody mess up front or how we dealt with dead bodies in Nowhere.
In all fairness, it was better that she didn’t know.
While Nowhere was officially home to Charlie now, that didn’t mean she was ready to know all of the things we did to protect what was ours out here.
“I was so stupid for having my phone on the other day. I knew better and yet I still led them right to me,” she whispered, looking up at me with pure sadness that dimmed the brightness in her green eyes.
“With everything you guys have done to protect me, I go and blow it all by being stupid and reckless with my phone.
“It’s okay,” I said softly, gently squeezing her shoulder. “You’re not stupid. It was an accident. I didn’t think about it either. Things happen.”
“It’s not okay!” she screamed, the panic rising in her voice as her eyes rose on her forehead.
“Don’t you get it? My stupidity almost cost you everything, Axel.
They could have come in and destroyed the bar, or worse, killed you!
They could have killed Jo! It’s not okay—none of this is okay.
I showed up and brought danger to your bar.
You shouldn’t want to protect someone like that. ”
“Charlie, I need you to trust me when I say this.” I squatted in front of her and looked her in the eyes.
“You didn’t put anyone in danger. Everyone in this town has been in worse danger than what just happened up front.
We’re all kinda used to danger at this point.
What matters now is keeping you and the baby safe. ”
“I just want this to be over,” Charlie said, letting her head fall as tears raced down her cheeks.
“I know you don’t want to talk about Jason, but I think we need to. Those guys aren’t just low-level thugs, Charlie. I think Jason was in deeper than you knew, and unfortunately, I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this yet.”
She pulled in a shaky breath and looked between Ashley and me.
“It’s the only way to protect you,” Ashley assured her. “I can tell you that whatever happened up front is not the end of it. Whoever is after you isn’t going to stop just because two of their guys are dead. If anything, that’s only going to make them come for you more.”
“My husband has a gambling problem,” Charlie said as she lowered her head.
“I didn’t know about it until after I found out I was pregnant.
It started with money missing from our savings account, and when I asked him about it, he got angry.
Then I checked the safe we had at home, and it was cleared out. ”
She took a deep breath before continuing. I clenched my jaw as I listened, already knowing some of their history based on what Charlie had confided in me early on.
“I knew I was going to ask for a divorce, but I needed to buy some time so I could try to put some money away. I wasn’t working, and knowing that no one was going to hire me because I was pregnant, I had to get creative.
I was in charge of our weekly grocery shopping and started getting cash back every time I went.
It was always small amounts, so he didn’t question it, especially when I started showing him some of the baby stuff I was buying.
I bought and installed a secret safe that I kept hidden behind my shoe rack in the closet, and that was where I stored all of the cash I was saving.
It was the only way to ensure I had a way out once I filed for divorce.
One day, I came home, and he was sitting on the couch with his face bloody and covered in bruises.
He told me that he’d made a ridiculously large bet and lost. Apparently, he had a friend who was loaning him money to clear his gambling debts, but he got tired of waiting for Jason to pay him back.
They gave him forty-eight hours to get the fifty thousand dollars he owed them, or they were going to kill me. ”
Charlie stopped and shook her head, clearing the tears from her eyes as they flowed down her cheeks.
“He said he told them not to hurt me because I was pregnant. I don’t know what happened after that, but when I came home a few days later, a man was waiting for me in the garage.
He said he was there to collect Jason’s debt by taking my baby.
He attacked me and tried to cut her out of my stomach.
I fought back the best I could, but I was so helpless.
I found a nail on the floor and stabbed him in the eye with it before hitting him in the head with a weight. ”
My eyebrows rose in surprise. Fucking hell. I knew she had come here right after they tried to cut the baby out of her stomach, but she hadn’t told me the rest.
“How heavy was the weight?” Ashley asked, completely unbothered by anything she had just heard, which didn’t surprise me, given Ashley’s past. I would never want anyone to have to go through what Ashley did.
“I don’t know,” Charlie said with a sigh as she scrunched her face. “Maybe five or ten pounds. Light enough for me to lift it without straining, but probably not heavy enough to kill him.”
“Would you be able to identify him if you saw him?” Ashley pressed, holding her phone in front of her as she looked down at the screen.
“Yes.” Charlie pulled her shoulders back as she answered with confidence.
“Is this him?”
Ashley turned the phone, and a picture of one of the men who had come in showed on the screen. His eyes were closed as blood pooled around his head.
Charlie covered her mouth and nodded.
“Yes. I recognize the tattoo under his eye and the dragon on his neck. I’m pretty sure the eye patch is from where I stabbed him with the nail.”
Just then, the door opened, and Jo walked in.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, noticing the look on her face.
“They’re part of my uncle’s crew. I immediately recognized the tats.”
My head dropped as I let a heavy breath out.
Fuck. This day just kept getting worse.
“What does that mean?” Charlie asked, standing up as she looked between us.
“It means that you pissed off the wrong fucking people,” Jo said, shaking her head. I knew how hard it was for her to talk about her past, so I could only imagine how this was impacting her.
“She didn’t,” I replied softly. “Her husband did.”